The social studies program at Hamlin strives to achieve historical, ethical, cultural, and geographic literacy across the K-8 curriculum. The social studies curriculum is designed to ask students to consider important questions in the discipline:

How do cause and effect relationships affect societies and history?

• What are the lenses through which culture can be examined?
• How and what can we know about time periods and events?
• What is the role of “voice” in society and history?
• What allows cultures to be successful? What causes others to fail?

• What causes interdependencies between peoples and between people and the environment
• What is the impact of major historical events?
• What are our personal connection to other cultures and events?
• What is the significance of connections between different time-periods and events?

At the Hamlin, diversity is appreciated as students examine the similarities and differences between cultures and between communities as they study cross-cultural traditions. Finally, the arts, religions, and celebrations of different cultures are studied to reveal underlying belief systems.

Social studies is taught in all grades kindergarten through eighth. In kindergarten through fourth grades social studies is integrated into the class curriculum. In the fifth and sixth grades it is linked with language arts in a humanities curriculum. In seventh and eighth grades social studies is a separate class, meeting five times a week.

There are two distinct sequences of content taught in the social studies program. From kindergarten to third grade students expand their scope of awareness and understanding. During kindergarten and first grade students learn about themselves and the other students in their class. During second grade they expand the study to include communities, neighborhoods, and the city of San Francisco. Third grade focuses on Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In these units the students are taught the geographic and cultural elements of these parts of the world. Fourth grade serves as a transition year from the geographic and culturally centered Lower School curriculum to the chronologically centered curriculum of the Middle School. In fourth grade students learn the about the geography of California and study California history chronologically.

The fifth grade learns about early and ancient civilizations with a focus on early humans, Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, ancient India, and ancient China. The sixth grade curriculum picks up with Roman civilization and brings students through Western history to the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods. Seventh grade continues chronologically learning about American history from the early 1600s to the present day. Like the fourth grade, the eighth grade curriculum plays a special role. During this year student learn to make cross-cultural and cross-time connections. By pairing subjects such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam with the Arab-Israeli conflict, students are asked to engage in higher-order connections. Throughout the curriculum there is a particular emphasis given to women’s experience in history—a critical element of a girls’ school curriculum.

The social studies curriculum also teaches a wide variety of skills. Students learn many of the traditional social studies skills including map reading, creating time lines, critical reading, and note taking. Research skills are taught at every level and formally addressed in fourth grade and throughout the Middle School. Throughout the curriculum students are taught the skills of organizing information and presenting their understanding both orally and in writing. With a major focus on cultural and ethical education throughout the program, empathy is a critical skill taught at every level.

The social studies program at Hamlin places much emphasis on cultural and ethical literacy. The program teaches a true appreciation for the diversity of human experience throughout the world and time. The students also learn about the importance of coupling knowledge with goodness. Social studies at Hamlin develops each student’s voice; they learn to take ownership of their ideas and to effectively express their beliefs in both the written and spoken word. Throughout the program students are also taught to view the world through a number of lenses. Finally, the diverse teaching methods of the Hamlin social studies, from role-playing to student teaching, bring history to life. Hamlin graduates see social studies not as a set of answers to be learned, but as a series of questions and debates with which to engage. We teach students to see the world as social scientists and historians, and in dong so, they develop a love for the discipline.